La guerra dell'audience

THE RATINGS GAME is one of the funniest and well written movies of all time. Its the TV industry making fun of itself. The plot is unique and clever, the love story with DeVito and Perlman is very well done and touching, and there are cameos by many great stars and stars to be. Basically its a spoof of really bad sit-coms where the lead character fraudulently manipulates the ratings to make his patently bad show beat the World Series in ratings. Brilliant movie, probably not easy to find. There are very few comedies that get me. This one is side-splitting and a real bulls-eye insightful satire of the Hollywood TV industry and scene. Bravo.

This satire on the TV industry is too much of it, with mountains of cheesy plot-driven dialog set to the accompaniment of hyper-cheesy music. But mixed in are some great gags--one of the best is a sight gag, when Gerrit Graham walks back on stage at the MBC confab, to continue plumping his network's new shows against a devilishly appropriate freeze-frame from one of them. Much of the value now is to have fun seeing all kinds of talent before, between, or after the high points of their careers. Casting wise, this show could pick 'em.

The strongest element here is the apt satire. Alas, the laughs are not frequent enough, or intense enough, to really sustain the effort. The movie in the end is a cheese dog, but the stars play it cute, and it's fun. Five stars for wide and deep star power, far transcending the script.

It's fun to see each person do their best. None of the acting is bad. The story is a little, well, seeing it once is good enough. I watched it while I was doing some of the work and we enjoyed a couple bits. I'm much happier that I watched it then if I didn't.

Danny devito is vic, trying to sell his script for a tv series to anyone, but no takers. Until he meets francine, who is played by the real mrs. Devito, rhea perlman. Vic gets his show on the air, but it's going to get pulled unless he can bring up the ratings. And francine just happens to work for the tv ratings company. She knows just how to scam the ratings, but wants no part of it. Can vic use her knowledge to bump up the show ratings while keeping his relationship intact? A little over the top, but to be fair, there wasn't a lot of security on computers in 1984! A funny bit where the president of the network fires employees by playing one, long, pre-recorded vhs tape, as they file into his office, one by one. Another funny gag where vic has his chauffeur drive when he and francine ride in bumper cars at the amusement park. It's fun. So many tiny little cameos with about half of hollywood! Take a minute and look at that cast list! Even some golden television oldies, like steve allen, jayne meadows, and huntz hall. Hall was in the bowery boys... he only did a couple more things after this. And of course, george wendt, rhea's co-star from cheers is in here. Fun adventure, if you just buy into the whole premise. Directed by devito himself.

"The Ratings Game" is the first made for Showtime film and it's an over-the-top film...the sort that might make you laugh but also is pretty dopey.

Vic (Danny DeVito) is a rich guy who has dreams of being a TV producer. But he's also a talentless clod who doesn't know the first thing about making TV shows. Not surprisingly, again and again he's rejected by the networks because his ideas are, frankly, terrible. However, when a network exec is fired, he okays a TV pilot starring Vic....mostly out of a desire for revenge.

As for Vic, he's a guy who comes up with a scheme. It seems his girlfriend (Rhea Perlman) works for Computron...a Nielsen-type service that monitors TV viewing for the networks. Using her inside information, Vic and his associates track down a hundred of these families whose viewing is monitored. He arranges for these families all to have a free cruise...during which time, Vic's men break into the familys' homes and watch Vic's show....giving it incredibly high ratings despite the show being crude and stupid. But the problem is that when the show is a hit, the network wants to buy the show and make Vic a star....so this means keeping these unfortunate families on an extended cruise! What's next? See the film.

The acting in this one is very broad as is the writing. It's funny and insightful while ALSO being rather dopey. My daughter watched it with me and hated it. I thought that despite everything, it is cute and worth seeing....but I do agree the film was a bit stupid.